


The Campfire

by Hawkeye_918



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Campfire stories, Gen, Humor, Mentions of minor characters, Minor Character Death, TF2 Secret Satan 2019, Team Bonding, attempt at scariness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkeye_918/pseuds/Hawkeye_918
Summary: This is my present for my giftee for the TF2 Secret Satan 2019!Its a fall night in the desert, and some of the team is sat around a campfire, telling spooky stories, making s'mores, and roasting hot dogs.Happy Halloween!





	The Campfire

**Author's Note:**

> Let's gather round the campfire, and sing our campfire song...

Night had fallen over the desert, and had brought with it a crisp chill to the air. The stars spread out across the sky as if someone had unrolled a bolt of the deepest blue velvet fabric, speckled with brilliant silver glitter. 

It was late in September, and somewhere nearby yet unseen, an owl was hooting. Crickets and other insects called all around, and far in the distance, a lone coyote barked. 

Soldier, Demo, Engie, Scout, and Sniper were sat around a campfire, joking and carrying on. The atmosphere was light-hearted and carefree, with the gang roasting hot dogs and making s’mores and taking drinks from the cooler Engie’d brought.

Soldier had the unholy idea to put a marshmallow, a hot dog, and then another marshmallow on his stick, then roast the thing over the campfire. When the thing had been cooked to his liking (burnt almost beyond recognition), Soldier coated his creation with a healthy layer of mustard and sandwiched it between two graham crackers.

Engie looked like he was going to retch.

Soldier just happily (and loudly) crunched his sinful s’more, crumbs flying everywhere.

“That’s a bloody abomination, is what that is.” Sniper said, face contorted in disgust.

“Y’don’t get to judge, mate. Ye roadkill eatin’ bastard.” Demo grinned, pointing an accusatory finger at Sniper.

Sniper laughed through his nose.

“You should try this!” Soldier said, turning to his left and holding his half-eaten s’more an inch in front of Engie’s face.

Engie turned green and gently pushed it away. Not much could gross him out. But this conversation? Yuck.

“Can we talk about somethin’ else? Anythin’ else?” Engie sighed, dropping what was left of his hot dog into the fire. 

“Can we tell scary stories? Huh? Huh? Can we?” Scout asked, bouncing up and down in his seat, eager for an opportunity to talk. 

“Do you think you can handle it?” Sniper joked, lightly elbowing Scout in the side.

“ ‘Course I can!” Scout said, a touch indignant. 

Scout puffed up his chest, like a rooster asserting himself. “Tell you what, I’ll even go first.” He said matter-of-factly.

“Go on, then.” Demo motioned for him to proceed.

“Alright, so, this happened a few years ago, not far from here. A man was drivin’ down the road an’ his car broke down”, Scout grinned as he set the scene, “so he decides he oughta hitchhike, right? The guy’s standin’ there with his thumb out, and a car comes by and stops just ahead of him. He runs up to the passenger side door and opens it, and when he does…”

Scout paused for dramatic effect.

“A skeleton popped out!” Scout shouted suddenly. Exactly no one looked impressed. 

Scout frowned.

Soldier laughed. “That is  _ the worst _ scary story I have ever heard!”

“Yeah, well, stories are for babies anyways.” Scout said with a dismissive wave of his hand, though clearly annoyed his story hadn’t had its intended effect. “Y’know what’s real scary? Bein’ in a situation where you can’t defend yourself. Like, walkin’ through a crappy neighborhood at night, with no knife or nothin’ on ya, knowin’ there’s some bozos waitin’ in the shadows to jump you.” Scout hated nothing more than feeling vulnerable, in every sense of the word. To be cornered and outnumbered would be his absolute worst-case scenario. He rolled down the sleeves of his t-shirt in a feeble attempt to fight off the descending temperature.

Sniper scratched his chin idly. “I can understand that, I s’pose. I enjoy bein' alone, but when you should be alone and you ain't, well…" He trailed off. 

"Don't leave us in suspense, Stretch." Engie snickered and handed Sniper a beer from the cooler. "We can tell you got a story for us." 

Sniper shrugged, but smiled. "Well, alright." He popped the top off the beer and took a long, slow, sip, and then he began, voice a bit hoarse. 

"Had to have been almost ten years ago now. I was trekking in the bush at night, but I was still wet behind the ears, and I was far, far from home. Weren't nobody around for hours in any direction. There was just the faintest trail, just enough that I didn't have to bushwhack. I had a headlamp on and I was goin' slow. Its healthy to be paranoid out there, so I was turnin' around every time I heard a twig snap or saw a shadow. After a while, I turned around and thought I saw something behind me, several dozen meters back. For some reason I got the bright idea to turn off my headlamp. So I did, and I turned around again."

Sniper stopped momentarily to take a drink, then cleared his throat and continued. "So when I turned around, I swore it was a bloke standin' back there, staring at me. Thing is, eyes in living things tend to reflect light back in different colors, dependin' on the species. Crocs' eyes always shine back red. But the color isn't consistent in most species. The markers you wanna look out for is how high off the ground the eyes are and how the animal is actin', yeah? Well, funny thing about humans, our eyes don't reflect light. There was just enough moonlight comin' through the bush that I could see this fella's eyes shinin' back yellow. But it looked like it could've been a tall man. And the more I looked, I realized this couldn't have been a man at all. Head was at a wonky sort of angle, arms were… gnarled and gangly. Everything just looked wrong, and my stomach felt sick. And I knew, this wasn't a man, this was somethin' pretendin' to be." 

Sniper had been just watching the fire as he spoke, it was unclear whether he had zoned out looking at it or was transfixed.

Scout had his knees pulled up to his chest and goosebumps on his arms. "So how'd you get away?" He asked. 

"I turned my headlamp back on, started runnin' and didn't stop for I'm not sure how long. The whole time, I could hear branches snappin' behind me. Louder and louder, closer and closer. Until it just… stopped. But I'm glad I didn't shine my light on it. Don't reckon I would've liked what I saw." Sniper replied. 

"Bless your heart", Engie murmured. 

"Holy hell", Demo said in a stage whisper. 

Soldier was busy picking his nose.

And Sniper stared off into space for a minute, and thought, really  _ thought _ about the occurrence for the first time since it'd happened. That was what scared him most, being the watched, not the watcher. The prey, not the hunter.

Demo skewered another marshmallow and held it over the fire. 

"I've got stories upon stories, it's just a matter of pickin' which one." Demo said, slightly rotating the marshmallow. 

"This ain't gonna be the one about 'the lights in the moors' again, is it?" Scout asked, looking bored. 

"It wasn't lights, it was a will-o'-the-wisp. That's a very important difference, lad." Demo said. 

Demo looked down in time to see his marshmallow catch on fire. He quickly blew it out. 

"So this story is actually me mum's, from back when she was a wee slip of a thing. Had to have been 'round the turn o' the century, now. She and another little lass from school were playin' with a ball by the river, when it got away from them an' rolled inta the bushes. Mum went to get it and wasn't gone but a minute or two, and she came back to see a horse walkin' up from the bank of the river, just as natural as you please. The other little girl was excited, but me mum, not so much." 

Demo pried his half-burnt marshmallow off the stick and as he began fashioning it into a s'more, he resumed his story. 

"Because frankly, it was in a place no horse ought to be. An' it was a beautiful horse, tall with a shiny white coat. Part of the trouble was, mum couldn't recall ever seeing a horse like that belongin' to someone in the village. And she got a sick feeling in her stomach when the horse got closer. Mum's friend walked up to the horse and pet it, an' said how strange it was, that the horse was cold as death. That was when me mum knew, it was no horse. It was a kelpie. She begged her friend to run away, so they'd both get out of there. But her friend said she was fine, and she pet the horse again. This time, though, the kelpie's skin became like glue, and her hand stuck fast. When she tried to free herself, she just got more stuck. The beast turned and looked at me mum, then changed direction and charged into the river, the little girl still stuck to its side. Seems like it knew it couldn't get her too. They dissapeared under the water, and mum knew she wouldn't see her friend again. She ran back for help, o' course, but by then it was too late." Demo finished and looked down at his smore somberly. He realized he wasn't hungry anymore, and passed it to Scout, who took it and ate it without question. 

"What happened to your mum's friend?" Sniper asked, leaning forward. "I mean, why'd it take her?" 

"It's what those bastards do. Disguise as a nice horse to get ye to come up and pet it, then stick to you so they can drag ye down into the depths, drown you, and eat you whole. Save for the liver and heart." Demo said. This had been a cautionary tale his mother had repeated often growing up. The concept of watching someone you care about die so dreadfully, and knowing there's nothing you can do to save them, was Demo's greatest nightmare. Seeing his friends die on the battlefield repeatedly each day was a special kind of hell. But they'd always come back, right? 

Silence reigned for the moment as those around the fire processed the story. 

"We should go  _ take care _ of that horse sometime." Soldier said, punching his open palm in that classic tough guy gesture. 

Demo chuckled, and felt a bit better in that moment. 

"Ye wanna go next, Soldier?" Demo asked. 

"Nah. I'll go last." Soldier said with a mischievous smile. 

"Alrighty then, seems that leaves me." Engie said. The campfire had died down some, so he placed a log on it to bring it back up. 

"Now I figure no story we lot could tell would beat whatever we've seen while fightin'," Engie said, "but there ain't nothin' wrong with a good story, 'specially if it's true." 

He rubbed his hands together to try and warm them up.

"While back, when I used to work in the oilfields, I got a letter from back home sayin' some old fella in town had passed on, and I was invited to the funeral. It was a small town, damn near everyone was invited. I didn't know him well and couldn't take the time off, so I decided I'd just drop by and pay my respects next time I was in the area. Maybe a month later I'm back in town, and I head over to the cemetery. Cemetery was older than Texas itself, with the old graves up front and the newer ones in the back. I went to the back and looked for the newer graves, but I couldn't find it. I walked all around, did a few laps of the place, and still couldn't find it. It was a warm fall day by all rights, but it was so damn cold in that cemetery, my teeth were chatterin'. The kind of cold that goes through your whole body and makes your bones ache. You couldn't hear no birds or nothin', it was just silent and eerie and, heh, dead calm. I was about ready to give up. When I looked down a grave marker, for someone who'd passed on in the '30s, and it was covered in leaves. I thought I'd do them a kindness and brush the leaves off the marker, but when my hand touched the stone, it was colder than ice." Engie rubbed his hands together again, as if the memory of this was making him colder. 

"Well, soon as I touched that stone, the wind came on outta nowhere and kicked into high gear, whippin' leaves up all around. Wind was so strong it knocked me on my rear and I couldn't get up. Don't know what came over me, but I yelled 'I'm sorry!'. And right when I did, the wind stopped. And I heard a bird sing."

He paused momentarily. "Took me a while to find my way out. I figured I was only in the cemetery for maybe forty-five minutes. When I got in my truck and looked at the clock, then out the window at the sun startin' to set, I realized I'd been there for over six hours and couldn't explain a damn thing that had happened." He could not account for the lost time and he could not rationalize the chain of events. Engie loved tangible things, concepts that could be proven, and puzzles with a solution he could work out. Situations beyond rationalization, problems he couldn't reach out and fix with his own hands, questions without answers, kept him up at night, and frankly terrified him. 

Sniper whistled low and shook his head.

"Ya didn't even find the right grave, did you?" Demo asked, eyebrow raised. 

"Nope." Engie said, and laughed in spite of himself. 

"Ay, Soldier", Scout said, nodding in his direction, "whatcha got for us?" 

Soldier grinned. "I was hoping we would be telling stories! So I brought a book!" He stood up and pulled out a small, dark green leather-bound book from under his shirt. 

"D'you even know how to read it? And this is, like, comin' from  _ me _ ." Scout said. 

"I did not look at it, but I got it from a box in Merasmus's basement, so it should be good." Soldier said, holding the book up proudly. 

This prompted four simultaneous responses.

"You got it from  _ where _ ?!" Demo yelled, incredulous. 

Sniper recoiled. "What the hell, Soldier?" 

"What were you thinkin', boy?" Engie said, face contorted in disbelief. 

Scout stood up and lunged toward Soldier, trying to knock the book into the fire. Soldier held the book higher in his left hand, and clasped his right hand over Scout's face and shoved him backwards, nearly into the campfire. 

Soldier stood on his tip-toes and held the book up a little higher. Scout, undeterred, reached for the book again. "Gimme that!", Scout said, his hands briefly making contact with the book before Soldier headbutted him away. The pain from getting headbutted by a big, helmet-wearing man sent Scout reeling off to the side, again narrowly missing the fire. 

Scout grimaced and rubbed his head. "You broke into a wizard's basement to steal a book and you don't even know what it's about?" He said, in pain and annoyed yet willing to hear Soldier's explanation before he tried (key word) to kick his ass. 

Engie stood up. "Mind if I take a look at that?" He asked, turning to Soldier and extending a hand. 

"Sure thing, Engie." Soldier said, happily handing the book over. 

Scout frowned, verging on a pout.

Engie accepted the book and gently leafed through the brittle, yellowed pages. 

He squinted at the text. 

"Hey Demo, y'wanna take a look at this? Latin's your thing, yeah?" Engie passed the book to Demo. 

"Aye, I'll give it a shot." Demo said with a nod. He took the book and flipped through it gingerly. 

His expression went from unsure, to confused, to smiling in a matter of thirty seconds. Then he outright guffawed. 

"What exactly are we laughin' about?" Sniper asked, a bit puzzled. 

"This", Demo said, smiling wide, waving the book in front of him, "is a bloody  _ cookbook _ ." 

"A what now?" Soldier asked, enthusiasm faltering. 

"A cookbook. This", Demo said, flipping to a specific page and holding the book out so Soldier could see, "is a recipe for macaroni and cheese." 

The tension around the campfire dissipated instantly. 

Scout sighed in relief. 

Sniper unclenched his jaw that he hadn't realized he'd clenched in the first place. 

"So if an angry wizard comes lookin' for that, he's got nothin' more to look for than his recipes?" Engie chuckled.

"If you can even really call these things  _ recipes _ . Who puts chocolate in their cole slaw?" Demo scoffed. He gave the book back to Soldier, who slipped it back under his shirt. He would return it first thing in the morning. Maybe. If he remembered. 

For the rest of the night, though the campfire died, the atmosphere remained light and warm. And when it came time to head back to the base, the group felt closer, in a way, than they had before.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> it was a little difficult getting back on the horse after not writing for so long but here we are!! it was a fun challenge trying to tell scary stories from the mercs' point of views. the story engie tells is just a bit inspired by something that happened to me a few years ago. bonus ducks if you know what scout's story is a reference to, lol.
> 
> thank you for reading! please leave kudos/ a comment if you enjoyed! and I hope you have a happy and safe Halloween!


End file.
